What are people building with Iroh?
See https://www.iroh.computer and "use cases" at the top of the page
Iroh 1.0
121–130 of 488 posts
Re: Iroh 1.0
#122I don't understand the problem its trying to solve in the first place, IP works just fine, such as DNS. There is already IPv6 and quic, you need vendor and major software to have any traction in that field.
DNS isn't decentralised it's more federated. I believe Iroh has the option to use DHT here, last I looked at least.
Exactly. We use DNS TXT records for our default address lookup system. But we also support fully p2p address lookup via the mainline DHT.
And if you have another suitable system, you can also plug it in. E.g. you might want to use another DHT that allows mapping from a key to some address data.
Re: Iroh 1.0
#123Earlier quoted context omitted.
vpns typically add at least one hop. this has the possibility of connecting directly via hole punching
Already possible with taiscale, netmaker, zerotier etc. https://tailscale.com/blog/how-nat-traversal-works
But only for devices already on that tailnet.
This allows you to provide information to an arbitrary person (a friend/coworker/etc) to let them access the thing without them having to jump through all the extra hoops of joining your tailnet/them joining yours/adding a VPN/etc.
Re: Iroh 1.0
#124So this could be used as a streamlined way for client devices (mobile phones for example) to phone home to servers (google.com for example) with user data and bypass some local network controls? (DNS block lists, for example)
Is there an android SDK available?
Re: Iroh 1.0
#125Earlier quoted context omitted.
Their use of addressing by keys instead of by IPs seems to be the main differentiator. Also the support for custom transports (BLE, LoRa, Tor) which appears to be in progress and not yet fully implemented. I love Tailscale, it's deployed on all my devices. But I might check this out for the transports part in particular.
Tailscale uses MagicDNS which allows one to auto-generate a semi-memorable private hostname as well. I'm in the networking industry so I'm not seeing anything truly groundbreaking or that isn't offered elsewhere.
The pitch here appears to be that this can allow communication between services without having to add them to a tailnet or such; e.g. if you wanted to let a friend or coworker access some service on your local network without making them join a tailnet, add a public external endpoint to forward traffic, set up a VPN, etc.
IIUC you just send someone 'here is the connection information' and it just works automatically.
Re: Iroh 1.0
#126Earlier quoted context omitted.
As others have already mentioned, iroh the core library and protocol is fully open source. But to finance the development of it, we offer additional services to make it easier to deploy and run it, especially for larger or more specialized use caes.
I don't mind paying for a subscription, as long as I'm not also paying for the privilege of being locked in to a specific vendor. If I pay for a subscription and then your prices quadruple or something, what are my options? Can I self-host a relay? Do I lose features if I do so?
Yes you can self-host your relays. Forever! Please check out the docs & hosting pages more information:
https://docs.iroh.computer/concepts/relays https://www.iroh.computer/services/hosting
Re: Iroh 1.0
#127Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't mind paying for a subscription, as long as I'm not also paying for the privilege of being locked in to a specific vendor. If I pay for a subscription and then your prices quadruple or something, what are my options? Can I self-host a relay? Do I lose features if I do so?
I'm not affiliated. From what I understand, they provide an open-source implementation of the relay server: https://github.com/n0-computer/iroh/tree/main/iroh-relay (which may or may not be what they actually run as part of their hosted offering). If you use their offering, you probably get some kind of web interface for metrics that isn't open-source.
Correct
Re: Iroh 1.0
#128So this could be used as a streamlined way for client devices (mobile phones for example) to phone home to servers (google.com for example) with user data and bypass some local network controls? (DNS block lists, for example) Is there an android SDK available?
Yes there is an Android SDK: https://docs.iroh.computer/languages/kotlin
Re: Iroh 1.0
#129So is this like an unfree CJDNS? What are the main differences?
There is nothing unfree about iroh. All core crates are published with the standard MIT and Apache2 licenses.
Re: Iroh 1.0
#130Earlier quoted context omitted.
Tailscale is built to be global to your device, while iroh is built to be embedded into each application. This allows application developers and users a much more fine grained and bespoke setup, than having a single global bridge.
you can embed tailscale on the application level https://tailscale.com/docs/features/tsnet
This isn't the same functionality - if I'm shipping a video conferencing application, tsnet would require all my customers be in my tailnet.